Ali & Phil's laid-back lunchtime celebration • Offbeat Wed (was Offbeat Bride)

The offbeat bride: Ali – pediatric nurse

Her offbeat partner: Phil – electrician

Location & date of wedding: Brethren Church in Toronto, Ontario: wedding upstairs, reception in the gym downstairs. May 9th, 2009

What made our wedding offbeat: I'm from New Jersey, he's from Fiji. We met on a ship in Liberia, and he proposed with a tie wrap in Canada. My wedding ring is wooden; he carved it for me while we were apart during our engagement.

We wanted our faith to be central, so we started our ceremony by sitting back down with our guests while my cousins led worship. Phil is Fijian-Indian, so we had an Indian food buffet for lunch. My brother's mother-in-law did all the decorating and flowers for us, my uncle married us, and my brother emceed.

Neither of us love cake, and we both hated the idea of a receiving line, so instead we had a sundae bar, where we scooped ice cream for our guests while wearing aprons that a tailor friend in Liberia had sewn for me. We had lots of kids at the reception, we we made goody-bags for them with little toys to keep them occupied while we ate.

There was no color scheme – just every color of tulip in mismatched vases on the tables. We did our photos after we left the reception. That way there was no pressure of a timeline, and we were free to do things like run a quarter mile up a set of train tracks while little kids yelled at us that it was dangerous. I was totally relaxed, ate a ton, and had the best time of my life.

Our biggest challenge: Phil and I are missionaries. We live and work (and met!) on board the Africa Mercy, a charity hospital ship in West Africa. At Christmas, he came home to meet my parents and propose. A week later, he left to go back to the ship. I stayed home to plan things, and so we spent our entire engagement apart.

Since most of my family lives in Canada, and Phil had been living there for a number of years as well, we decided to get married in Toronto, a central spot for most of the people coming. Because of a training course Phil had to attend in June, we set our date for early May; that made for one potentially stressed-out bride: three and a half months to plan a wedding from a different country with a groom who's living on a ship in a different time zone.

Enter my mother. With her as the consummate matter-of-fact planner, we managed to get everything done while spending only 2 weeks total in Toronto. She took our ideas and figured out the logistics, something I'm not great at. (As in, I designed the invites and programs, but she told me where to get them printed.) We recruited friends and family to help with almost everything. She had it so well planned that everyone got to enjoy the day totally stress-free. (At least I did!)

My favorite moment: It's so hard to pick just one, because I loved so much about the day. My bridesmaid and best friend sang a song she wrote during the ceremony. My grandma, who's been struggling since having a stroke, was actually able to come – fitting, since we share the same anniversary.

We took photos on train tracks in front of a graffiti-covered wall, for crying out loud! The food was amazing, my dress was comfortable and everything just felt totally relaxed. But the one thing that sticks in my mind is Phil's face when I was walking towards him down that aisle. He had the hugest grin, and he never took his eyes off me. It was like I was the best thing he'd ever seen, and I'll carry that with me through the rest of our lives together.

My offbeat advice: After Phil proposed, my dad sat us down and gave us his one piece of wedding advice. “Think outside the box.” We knew that there were certain traditions we wanted to keep, and others that we cared nothing for.

We got our fair share of people wondering why I didn't have a theme or a color scheme or even a cake, why there wasn't going to be a first dance, how I could possibly let the bridesmaids pick their own dresses, and whether I was sure I wanted “just a friend” to do my photography. But we did things the way we wanted, and the day ended up being a celebration in so many ways.

My advice? Don't listen to anyone who thinks they know more about you than you do. You know what makes your relationship special. You know what you love about each other, and you know what's important to you. So make your day about all that, not about silly traditions that mean nothing in your lives. I guess what I'm saying is, if you want to get up there and scoop ice cream for a couple hundred people, don't listen to old Aunt Mildred when she wonders a little too loudly why kids these days act so strange.

(…No disrespect intended to anyone who actually HAS an old Aunt Mildred.)

Any vendor links to share?
Photography by Sevenbright. Catering was by The Host, my brother's favourite Indian restaurant

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